and home will be here
by madetohealxx
Summary: Christmas at Monmouth Manufacturing.


On Tuesday, December 22nd, Blue cut school and rode her bike to Monmouth Manufacturing, timing her arrival for after Gansey and Ronan would already be at Aglionby. Her backpack was stuffed to bursting and her breath was misting the air in front of her, but she grinned against the cold anyway, excited for the day she had planned. She was tired from a night spent packing supplies instead of sleeping, but the wind in her face was doing a good enough job of waking her up.

When she pulled up to Monmouth, she stashed her bike and dragged all of her supplies inside, jimmying the lock until the door fell open. It still felt a little strange being here when none of the building's actual residents were with her, but Blue was starting to feel at home in the space. She flipped on the lights as she walked around, checking for signs of life and shedding her bags and outerwear behind her. After taking a quick inventory of the room, Blue gathered up her bags and began laying her supplies out on the pool table so she could do a quick inventory. If she had forgotten anything at this point, she would just need to improvise a solution anyway.

Blue was lining up canisters of glitter and tubes of paint when Noah whispered "Glitter!" from behind her. Blue dropped the supplies she had been organizing and spun around.

"Noah!" She engulfed him in a hug, her smile only growing when he patted her hair. "We've missed you, but I was hoping you would be here today."

He smiled down at her shyly. "It's been..."

Blue hugged him again before he could start to fade. "I know."

Noah smiled again and moved toward the pool table. "Are we booby trapping Ronan's room?"

"No." Blue grinned. "Well, probably not. We're doing Christmas here this afternoon since Gansey's going to his parents' tomorrow, and I decided to make things more festive." Noah hesitantly reached out to poke at some of the craft supplies, so Blue moved closer to him until they were standing pressed together and she could rest her head on his shoulder. "Want to help?" She looked up at him through her bangs and was rewarded with Noah's smile blooming as his face took on more color from her contact with him.

While Noah finished sorting out all of the supplies on the craft table, Blue pulled out Gansey's laptop and booted it up to find some Christmas music. Once she found a suitable playlist, she looked up and stifled a giggle. Noah had managed to get himself completely tangled up in the string of Christmas lights she had taken from Fox Way and was just spinning around, trying to catch the end so he could free himself.

Blue crossed the room to him and started unwinding the lights, brushing her fingers against him frequently as she slowly spun him. On his third spin, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. Blue dropped the string of lights and brought her hands up to cup his face. Noah's arms were mostly free now so wiggled until he could raise them enough to tangle his fingers in Blue's hair. They kissed through the end of the song, then Blue leaned back just enough that he could still feel her smiling. "We need to decorate, Noah."

He pressed forward for one more quick kiss. "Fine, fine," he told her with a sigh, and went back to spinning so she could finish untangling him.

They worked all morning, slowly turning Monmouth Manufacturing into a winter wonderland. They hung the Christmas lights and the few pre-made decorations Blue had been able to sneak out of Fox Way first, and then moved on to the stack of decorations she had put together the night before.

Noah flipped through a stack of construction paper that had been painted with silvery white glitter before Blue plucked the pages out of his hands. "These are for miniature Henrietta. I didn't want to do anything permanent or too hard to clean up, but we can at least give the buildings snowy roofs."

Noah's eyes widened but he turned without saying a word, disappearing into the kitchen/bathroom/laundry. Blue could hear him rummaging around, but shrugged and started taping the papers together so she could place them on top of the buildings Gansey had painstakingly constructed. She had half the buildings finished before Noah came back, two bags of cotton balls in his hands.

"Snow!"

"Perfect, thanks Noah! Do you want to work on that? Just pull the cotton balls apart a bit and scatter them around."

"Can we add glitter?" he asked, practically bouncing.

Blue thought about it for a minute. "Yes, but I'll add it to the bag. I don't trust you with the shaker." She stuck her tongue out at him, but Noah ignored her, too excited by the prospect of the glitter snow. She shook some of the glitter into the bags of cotton balls, then tossed a few pinches on Noah himself for good measure. Noah preened.

Blue finished the buildings, but Noah was still carefully pulling the cotton balls apart and setting up snowy vignettes in the streets of miniature Henrietta, so she went to find her backpack and the last thing she had packed. She hadn't been able to believe her good luck when she'd seen the fake tree still sitting in the storage containers at Fox Way, but having the top portion sitting right where she could easily grab it had made her pause long enough to wonder if one of the psychics had left it there for her. She had quickly decided it didn't matter, especially since if they had left it for her they probably weren't going to rat her out to Maura, and stuffed it into her backpack before fleeing the house. Now Blue set it up in the center of Henrietta, spreading the branches and artfully draping tinsel on it.

Blue and Noah finished at the same time and sat back to admire their handywork. The apartment looked infinitely more festive than it had this morning, but she still had a pile of construction paper and a couple of hours before the boys came home if they wanted to keep working. They cut snowflakes and Santa hats to hang on the walls, and then Noah started working on a paper chain to hang across the room. While he cut and taped the pieces together, Blue stood in the center of the room and slowly turned in a circle, trying to see where there were gaps in the festivity. She stopped while facing the doors to Noah's and Ronan's bedrooms and smirked.

Blue's energy was starting to flag, which meant Noah's was too, but they pushed through to finish hanging the last of the decorations. While Noah attached the paper chain to the walls, Blue hung the signs she had painted for the doors: "NICE :)" for Noah's room and and "NAUGHTY :|" for Ronan's. She left Noah giggling over her artwork and cleaned up most of the mess they had made.

Blue was setting the small presents she had wrapped for the boys on the pool table when Noah draped himself over her shoulders. "Can I open my present now?"

Blue turned and poked him. "Wait for everyone else to get here," she tried to say, although the yawn in the middle made it hard to understand her. Noah nodded and took her by the hand, leading her back to Gansey's bed. They curled up together under Gansey's blanket and Blue closed her eyes, thinking she would just rest for a few minutes and then finish cleaning up.

She woke to the sound of the door slamming and Ronan yelling, "Maggot! I told you to stop breaking in here." Blue sat up, still groggy from her nap, and gave Ronan the finger. He just laughed and followed Chainsaw as she investigated the additions to the apartment.

Gansey came through the door a minute later with Adam in tow. "Jane! When did you get here?"

Blue was still sitting in the middle of his bed, tangled in his sheets, and Noah was nowhere in sight. "This morning, I cut school to decorate."

Gansey frowned but then turned to glare at Ronan, who had shouted his approval of Blue's choices.

"I thought we were doing dinner tonight," Adam cut in, trying to distract Gansey from scolding anyone.

"We still are." Blue struggled out of Gansey's bed, still wrapped in his blanket, and shuffled to the pool table. "I wanted to give you jerks your presents first."

Gansey narrowed his eyes. "You said no presents!"

Blue smiled innocently at him. "Did I?"

At the mention of presents, Noah had come out of his room and draped himself over Blue again. "Presents?"

The boys greeted Noah while Blue sorted through the small pile of gifts. She tossed the first one to Ronan, who pulled the bow off and immediately stuck it to Adam's shoulder. He unwrapped a small black figurine and turned it over in his hands.

"It's a raven hood ornament," Blue said since he seemed confused by it.

Ronan bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. "Thanks, Maggot."

Next Blue handed a small flat package to Adam. He carefully pulled up the corners of the paper until he could extract the thin paper bound notebook from it. The back of the notebook was plain brown, but on the front there was a drawing of a tree growing from a heart. "I thought you might like to jot down notes for Cabeswater sometimes, instead of keeping everything in here," she said, tapping on his forehead. Adam smiled shyly and wrapped her in a brief hug.

"Me next!" Noah tugged at her blanket. "I've been waiting all day."

Blue grinned and handed him what looked like a pile of shiny ribbons. He tore them off and delightedly put the mistletoe flower crown on his head.

"No," Ronan said before Noah even looked at him.

"Fine," Noah replied primly, turning to Adam instead. Adam sighed but didn't tell him no, so Noah leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Ronan was watching a little too intently, a blush creeping up his neck. When Adam noticed, his face reddened to match. Noah grinned at the two of them. "If you ask nicely, Ronan, I'll let you borrow it-"

"I've thrown you out the window before and I'll do it again," Ronan interrupted.

While the three of them were bickering, Blue picked up the last present from the pool table and moved closer to Gansey. Her fingers brushed his when she handed it to him. He unwrapped it slowly, enjoying the weight of Blue's eyes on him, then turned the cd case over in his hands. "A Mix for Late Night Drives?" he read.

Blue bit her lip and reached out to touch his hand again. Gansey swallowed and glanced at the other boys, but they were still distracted by Noah and his mistletoe. He darted forward and hugged Blue, his hands slipping inside the blanket. "I can't wait to listen to it," he whispered against her hair.

The moment was broken by Noah's shout of, "To Nino's!" which was quickly echoed by Ronan and Adam.

Blue stepped back so she could see all of her boys. "Okay okay, to Nino's!"


End file.
